


look at the stars (see how they shine for you)

by savingophelia (briennesbeauty)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, LITERALLY, based on neil gaiman's stardust, emma's on a quest, except it's all very gay, regina's a star, they're both idiots, this may or may not involve a unicorn, victorian fantasy fusion except it's all gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16320794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briennesbeauty/pseuds/savingophelia
Summary: it's just a simple story really, about, among other things: a very annoyed star, a young woman trying to win the heart of her beloved, a witch trying to take the heart of her enemy, a struggle for the throne, a glass snowdrop and a very old wall.or, another swan queen fairytale. based on the book/film/play stardust.





	look at the stars (see how they shine for you)

**Author's Note:**

> exactly what it says on the tin. i started this last year when i was playing yvaine in the theatre version of stardust and rediscovered it recently. no prior knowledge required. this is probably not going to follow the exact plot of the original story, but the concept is the same. 
> 
> for anyone who does know this story, this fic will have bits taken from the book, bits taken from the film and bits that i’ve completely made up. so don't expect a play by play of either, especially later on.
> 
> the first two chapters will be a LOT of housekeeping and set up, but i promise, once we get into it, it’s pretty much all swan queen all the time.

__

_A philosopher once asked, ‘Do we gaze at the stars because we are human? Or are we human because we gaze at the stars?’ Pointless, really._  


_‘Do the stars gaze back?’_  


_Now there’s a question..._

 

__

Our story begins with a handful of things. Primarily; a diamond, a deathbed, a dying snowdrop, and a wall. 

(But we’ll start with the wall.)

The wall in question was a thin, winding trail of grey stone and mortar that cut through the green countryside. It had stood for hundreds of years, and it was commonly thought it would stand for a hundred more. Moss and leaves were growing out of the cracks now – it was as if the wall was simply part of the earth itself. Immovable. Uncrossable. 

On one side of the wall, sprawled the Enchanted Forest – not strictly speaking ‘enchanted’ as the name suggests, but nonetheless filled with magic, mystic and myriad of strange creatures and fantastical beings. At the time our story begins, it is also filled with political unease and a royal dilemma, but we’ll get to that later. 

On the other side of the wall, is a small village by the name of Storybrooke. At the time, the village was nothing more than a few clusters of grey stone buildings and trodden grass tracks scattered amid the countryside. Fenced in by the wall to the north, and a series of rushing streams to the south, Storybrooke had little to do with strangers, or strange lands. The people raise their children and tend their sheep, and gossip in the pub, and are content to sit and look up at the sky. Mr. Darling, the school teacher, had visited London once in his youth, and that was the furthest anyone in Storybrooke had seemed to travel. 

As such, the people of Storybrooke had never taken too well to what was on the other side of that wall. Twice a day, every day, for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, two villagers take up guard of the wall and in eight hour shifts, stop children from climbing through the single gap to play in the meadow on the other side, or occasionally talk Storybrooke’s few visitors into going elsewhere. The guard post is switched so every adult in the town takes a shift at one point or other.

Some guards were more effective than others. Old Eugenia Lucas could send a stray villager away from the wall with nothing more than a steely glare. Emma Swan once fell asleep at her post and only woke up when Paige Gracie’s little boot kicked her in the head as she tried to clamber over. 

But perhaps this isn’t the best way to introduce our hero.

(Emma Swan, that is, not Paige Gracie. Though our tale may share many things with the common fairy tale, it is definitely _not_ suitable for a nine year old.) 

Emma Swan had recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday – ‘celebrated’ here means struggled to hold down a few pints of ale in crowded common room of _The Ruby Slipper_ , and woke up in the hayloft a mile down the road, which was the standard coming of age tradition of the time – and she’d received many gifts. her father gave her a pair of fine new boots and a bronze pendant embossed with a little swan he’d picked up on one of his old travels. Her friend August Booth gave her a study second hand edition of _Grimm’s Fairytales_ , complete with a heartfelt inscription. Ingrid the grocer let her have a bag of tea leaves and a piece of cinnamon spiced cake on the house. And many people bought her many drinks over the course of the night. 

But Emma Swan only really wanted one thing, and that was Elsa Aren’s hand in marriage.

Most days Emma was content, and when she daydreamed in the fields or at the tall desk at the back of the village shop, she fancied herself taking a steam ship across the Atlantic to seek her fortune. She hadn’t worked out the details and she didn't need to. She knew she’d never do it. She couldn’t dream an adventure bigger than that; let alone want one. 

(But there were times when the wind blew in from the other side of the wall, and brighter fantasies would bleed into Emma’s daydreams and she’d picture trolls and mermaids and beanstalks, princesses and palaces and swordfights. Sometimes, when those thoughts came on her, Emma would slip out the back door wrapped in her father’s wool jumper and lay flat on the grass and look up at the stars. 

From that little unlit village, the stars would spread out in the night sky like an ocean of lights. In the complete darkness, they were uncompromising. They were vast and uncountable as trees in a forest or leaves on a tree. Emma would stare up at them until she could barely keep her eyes open, and then she’d go back to bed and sleep like the dead.)

 

So she helped her father on the farm at the weekends, and spent her days working in the shop, selling butter and boot polish and making lists of orders for Ingrid to put in with her suppliers. And, yes, tripping over her own feet to open the shop door the instant she saw Elsa Aren walk by every day. 

Elsa was Ingrid’s niece and according to Emma, the most beautiful girl in Storybrooke, and the whole world. (She had kissed her behind the barn once. They were twelve. It was the middle of winter. And Emma resolved there and then that she would marry her someday.)

Each morning, at precisely nine o’clock, Elsa would visit the shop to pick up groceries for her parents, on her way back from walking her little sister to the schoolroom. Emma would have just opened up the shop, and would be leaning against the counter drumming her fingers on the rough wood, gnawing her lip and craning for a glimpse of the other girl out the storefront window. 

Elsa would come in and smile at Emma’s attempts to strike up a conversation, and hand over the list of shopping her mother had given her. She’d stand by and play with the end of her braid, while Emma inevitably made some kind of awkward comment about the contents of the shopping list. (It is a small village. Emma has yet to learn that ‘so you’ll be having rice pudding tonight’ or ‘how did your father find his new boots’ is not flirting.) 

Then Elsa would take her items and leave, and Ingrid would smile and shake her head at her perpetually cool niece, and at Emma, groaning with her head in her hands on the counter and her cheeks flushed red. 

And sometimes, when Emma got really lucky, Elsa would come back as the sun was setting – and with it, Emma’s shift – to pick up something her mother had forgotten to put on the list, or something they’d just run out of, and Emma would fight off a grin as she insisted on walking the other girl home.

And this is how our story begins. 

It is a balmy spring night like any other, and luckily for Emma, Elsa’s mother has run out of sugar, halfway through baking an apple pie. 

“Let me walk you home,” Emma offers, after bagging the sugar for Elsa and hanging up her apron for the day. 

Elsa just smiles a thin smile, hooking the paper bag over her pale wrist. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Maybe not,” Emma agrees, shrugging on her jacket and tugging her long blonde hair loose from its neat ponytail. She shakes it out wildly over her shoulders and grins. “But I want to.” She picks up her bag from under the counter and slings it over her shoulder. 

Outside, a crisp crescent moon rose in the twilight sky. The day’s warm air was turning cool and clear, and a few wisps of night mist were rolling in along the dirt tracks. Together, they follow the winding lane up toward Elsa’s family farm, while the stars burned bright and high, far above them. 

“Here,” Emma says, shifting her own bag to make room, and holding out her hand. “I can carry that for you.”

“You are sweet, Emma,” Elsa says with the slightest shake of her head. Still, she slips the bag of sugar off her wrist and hands it over. 

Emma’s heart leaps and she stares at the other girl as she takes the brown paper bag, trying to read the situation. _Sweet_ , she thinks. Sweet can mean romantic. (Sweet can also mean ‘like a younger sister’ or ‘it’s never going to happen’, but don’t tell Emma this.) 

For a while, the misty lane is quiet, and there’s only the sound of the leaves rustling in the distance, and two pairs of hobnailed boots crunching the dirt. Then Emma finds her courage and her voice, and says, simply, “Elsa.”

“Mm?” Elsa says, distracted. 

Emma takes a breath. “Do you think it would be, um, forward of me if I kissed you?”

“Yes,” says Elsa, bluntly and coldly. “Very forward.”

“Oh.” Emma says, not looking at her. Heat flares up the back of her neck, prickling in her cheeks. “Right. Okay.” 

For a few very long moments, the quiet descends again, and they walk side by side through the crisp darkness, the paper bag rustling on Emma’s arm. Cheeks burning, Emma steels herself for a second attempt. “It’s just that I think you’re the most amazing woman in the world.”

“I think you should be getting home,” Elsa says, but she says it gently, with a smile on her face. 

“You kissed me when we were twelve,” Emma says. Internally, she cringes at this, but something’s opened up in her and now she can’t stop talking. She must sound like an idiot. “And then again last year after the summer fair, and then you –”

“That was then,” Elsa says, with an apologetic smile. She gives Emma a sideways look as they carry on down the lane. “I’m not going to kiss you now, Emma.”

“If you won’t kiss me,” Emma says, half wild and reckless and free, half absolutely loathing herself. “Then will you marry me?”

“Marry you?” Elsa’s laugh is light and incredulous. 

Emma swallows her embarrassment and ignores the heat blazing up her neck. She lifts her head high to the cool night breeze and gives Elsa what she imagines is a calm, collected smile. (This is not how it comes off, by the way, but give her credit for trying.) “Will you at least think about it?”

Elsa lifts her head and rolls her eyes. “I already have quite a bit to think about.”

“Do you mean Jack?” Emma asks, face falling. “Because I don’t care about him or how much money his father has –”

“Jack’s already given me a gold ring.” Elsa informs her. “And he’s promised a real African diamond for my engagement one. If I accept. Don’t you think _I_ might care a little?”

“A diamond?” Emma scoffs and shakes her head, staring over at Elsa with huge green eyes. “Elsa, I’d go to Africa myself and bring you _ten_ diamonds if that’s what you wanted. I’d find a pyramid and name it after you.”

Elsa just laughs. “You are funny, Emma.”

“I’m not joking.” Emma insists. “I’d sail the high seas and fight pirates and bring you back chests filled with emeralds and rubies. I’d follow the river north and bring you back your weight in gold. I’d go even further north if you asked me to and fight a polar bear and bring you back its’ head –”

“I think you were doing quite well until you got to the bit about fighting polar bears,” Elsa says. She smiles, and in the starlight her bright eyes are like ice or opals. The evening breeze toys with the unruly end of her braid. 

Emma holds her breath, staring at her, scarcely daring to hope. 

“But I’m not going to kiss you, shop girl, and neither will I marry you.” Elsa finishes, with a slightly amused look on her pretty, pale face. 

Emma breathes in, unable to look away from her, unable to give up. Stubborn as ever, she swallows and plunges on. “I would go all the way to India and bring you back a carpet of gold thread. I would –“

“I have a perfectly good carpet at home,” Elsa assures her lightly. “Now, we should be getting along or my parents will wonder what’s taking so long. I don’t want them to jump to any wrong conclusions. Because I haven’t kissed you, Emma Swan.” 

“Not yet,” Emma grins, cheeks flushing. Daringly, she reaches out and clasps the other girl’s hand in hers. Elsa’s skin is smooth and cold. Green eyes bore into blue. “Elsa, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for your kiss. There’s no mountain I wouldn’t climb, no desert I wouldn’t cross, no dragon I wouldn’t fight.” She grins at her own ridiculousness, squeezing Elsa’s hand in her own. 

She turns, and with her free hand gestures to the little village roads around them and the night sky above their heads. At this instant, far up in the constellations, a star flashes and glitters and falls. Emma watches the brief flicker of blinding white scratch down the black night sky with her heart in her throat. 

Grinning breathlessly, she turns back to Elsa and takes her other hand. “For your kiss, Elsa, and the promise of your hand, I would bring you back that fallen star.” She pauses, looking down at her boots for a second before finding Elsa’s eyes with a cheeky smile tugging at her mouth. She raises one golden eyebrow. “And wouldn’t that be better than a diamond ring?”

Elsa smiles coyly, not looking straight at her. “I suppose it might.”

“Alright then.” Emma shakes a loose strand of blonde hair from her face and grins. When Emma grinned, she did it whole heartedly and honestly – it dimpled her cheeks and lit up her green eyes and took over her whole face. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll do what?” It was Elsa’s turn to be confused. 

“I will cross the wall, journey through the Enchanted Forest and bring you back that fallen star.” Emma declares, unable to stop smiling for a second. 

“That exact fallen star?” Elsa raises her eyebrows. She’s smiling too, but in a very different way to Emma. “You’d bring me that _exact_ star we just saw fall?”

“The very same.” Emma confirms, heart thudding with excitement and pride. 

“Go on then,” Elsa says. “And if you do, I will.”

Emma blinks, taken aback for a second. “What?”

“If you cross the wall and bring me that exact star we just saw fall, not another star, then I’ll kiss you.” Elsa explains, in a light, measured voice, an amused smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Who knows what else I might do? There. Now you don’t need to go to Africa or fight any polar bears.”

“What?” Emma repeats, still a little in shock. 

Elsa laughs at her, removes her hands from her grip politely but firmly, and sets off down the sloping path back to her father’s farm. 

After a few wonderful, windswept moments, Emma runs to catch her up. “Do you mean it?” She asks breathlessly.

Elsa shrugs, silvery blonde braid bouncing over her shoulder as she carries on down the hill, never once looking at Emma. “I mean it as much as you meant all that about emeralds and rubies.”

“Well then –”

“Shouldn’t you be running off to retrieve my fallen star?” Elsa prompts, still walking briskly as ever away from her. “It fell to the East over there.” And she laughs again. “Silly shop girl. It’s all you can do to make sure we have all the ingredients for rice pudding.”

“If I bring you the fallen star,” Emma clarifies, “What’ll you give me? A kiss? Your hand in marriage?”

“If you bring me that fallen star, I’ll give you anything you want,” Elsa remarks. 

Emma hurries after her, tugging lightly at the powder blue sleeve of her coat. “You swear it?” 

“Of course,” Elsa says, amused. They’re walking the last hundred yards now, up to the Aren’s farmhouse. The windows burn with lamplight, yellow and orange, and inside Emma can see the distant shapes of Elsa’s parents and little sister bustling around.

“Okay then.” Emma says, grinning. “I guess I’d better be on my way.”

Elsa bursts out laughing, and Emma turns around and tears off in the other direction, never more deadly serious. 

Emma runs all the way home. Brambles snag at her clothes and branches catch at her hair as the night wind stings her cheeks and turns the tip of her nose red. Her heart is pounding, her boots tearing up mud and stones from the road as she goes. By the time she stumbles through the wooden gate and up the steps into her house, she’s out of breath and panting. But she’s never felt more alive, or awake. Adrenaline fires through her veins and heats her blood.

“And what time do you call –” Her father does a double take as Emma stumbles to a stop in the kitchen, leaning against a counter. His honest blue eyes widen with concern, even as he tries a light smile. “What happened to you?”

“Sorry Father,” Emma pants. She swallows and stares up at him. “I’m leaving the village. Tonight. And I might be gone for a while.” 

“Right,” David’s smile freezes on his lips. He’s used to his daughter’s sudden ideas and stubbornness, but this is new. He frowns slightly, finishing wiping down the wooden table and folding the cloth over his arm. “And where might you be going?”

“East,” Emma announces.

“Ah.” David nods. _East_. There are two Easts – East to the next county, through the forest and the farmland, and East, the other side of the wall. David doesn’t have to ask which one she means. He drops his cloth on the kitchen table and wipes his hands on his trousers, before looking across at his windswept daughter. “Maybe we should have a little talk, first.”

Emma’s green eyes are wide and restless. She grins awkwardly, shaking her head. Her blonde hair has come completely loose, tangled wildly around her shoulders. A twig sticks out of one golden curl, and her trousers are spattered mud to the knee. She can’t stop thinking about bright blue eyes and falling stars and cold kisses behind the barn and Jack (that bastard, _Jack_.) “I kind of don’t have a lot of time...”

“It won’t take long.” David says firmly, making up his mind. He turns, motioning with his head. “Come on, kiddo. Upstairs. We’ll have a cup of tea, and afterwards you’ll have plenty of time for... East.”

So Emma reluctantly follows her father up the rickety stairs to the little attic that doubles as his bedroom, sits bouncing her knee as he boils water and brews tea. And then, after a few seconds of silence, she can’t take it anymore. The words rush out of her in a stream “Elsa Aren said she’d marry me if I went over the wall and got her this star we saw fall and I have to leave really soon ‘cause Jack’s getting her a diamond ring and he’s gonna propose soon anyway and then –”

“Emma,” David holds up a hand and settle down in front of her with a steaming cup. “Breathe.”

Emma sighs, and wraps her hand around the hot china teacup, suddenly embarrassed. It doesn’t sound like such a fantastic adventure with her father looking at her all patient and understanding. He has the same look on his face as he did when she was little and she’d skin a knee. 

“So you’re going to cross the wall,” He says. It’s not a question. He knows his daughter. Forbid her anything and it became her hearts desire. 

Emma just nods down into her cup.

David takes that in for a moment. “Nobody crosses the wall.”

“ _You_ crossed the wall,” Emma points out tactlessly, and takes a sip of tea. It’s still hot – she pulls a face as it scalds her tongue. 

“Ah,” David’s tired face falls into a smile. “That.” 

His blue eyes are soft and something about him speaks of surrender as he studies his daughter, the baby from the basket, all grown up now. In all honesty, he’s been waiting for this to come up for the last eighteen years. “I always knew one day you’d start asking questions without easy answers.”

Emma’s green eyes burn in the dim light, over her steaming cup of tea. She watches her father, and waits with baited breath and a new edge of excitement in her gut for him to carry on. It’s a big secret that he spend a night over the wall when he was younger, so, naturally the whole village knows about it. (In all honesty, Emma’s been itching to ask since she heard the first whispers years ago, but there was just never a good time to bring it up.)

“I was your age when I crossed,” David says. “So I suppose it’s about time you knew where you came from.”

Emma chokes a little on her tea. “ _Came from_?”

“Emma,” Her father sighs an age old sigh and sets his cup down in front of him. He fiddles with something at his shirt pocket for a second and Emma frowns, until she catches a glimpse of something flashing gold with reflected candlelight. After a second, he holds out his old glass snowdrop to her. 

“I crossed the wall because I was young and reckless and bored. It was a warm spring night like this, and I jumped the gap and walked through the meadow on the other side before whoever was on guard duty even had a chance to shout my name. I walked until I found the Faerie market setting up and I sat on the grass and watched the stars come out one by one. I didn’t even notice she’d been watching me until...” 

“Who?” Emma asks, with her voice hushed, not wanting to break the spell of her father’s story. 

A smile Emma’s never seen before unfurls across David’s mouth – it’s only small, but crinkles the corner of his eyes and lights up his whole face. “Your mother.”

Emma’s heart drops into her stomach. She blinks. “My _what_ now?”

Of course, objectively, Emma knows she must have had a mother at some point. Rationally, she know a woman must have given birth to her. But she’s never really thought about what that might mean. And she’s certainly never guessed – 

David takes a heavy breath and starts talking again, a softness to his voice as he continues his story, warm candlelight washing over his features and dancing on the little glass flower. “She’d been watching me all evening and I didn’t even realise. She laughed when I told her that. Said I was stupid, and I was lucky I was so _charming_. 

“She was working this stall, selling these perfect glass flowers. Not just snowdrops but bluebells and daisies and roses and every other kind of flower you can imagine. I’ve never got on with anyone the way I got on with her. It was like we’d been friends for years. She wasn’t like anybody in Storybrooke. She wasn’t like anybody in the country. She had the blackest hair, like ravens, skin like snow. 

“We had this one night together and in the morning I begged her to come back to Storybrooke with me or else to take me to the next Faerie village with her. I said we could travel the world or the Enchanted Forest but she... couldn’t. She told me she’d been a princess, before the witch who owned the flower stall cursed her to be her slave. She couldn’t leave because of the curse and she... Well, her first priority was her freedom and her birth right. She swore she’d reclaim her kingdom one day and when she did, she’d find me and bring me back to rule alongside her.” 

David draws in a deep, slow breath. The candle is dying down, wax melting all over the metal tray, the little orange flame flickering and casting soft shadows over his face. For a moment, he is still and silent and Emma holds her breath, willing the story not to be over – then he lifts his blue eyes, fiercely blue in the dim light, and looks at her. 

“Nine months later there you were. This tiny little baby in a tiny little basket, wrapped in that blanket of yours. There was a note pinned to it with my name on it. And tucked into the blanket with you was this.” 

He holds up the snowdrop once again. 

“A gift from your mother.” David glances down at the rough wooden boards under their feet. “I think it’s about time it was yours.”

“Father, no, I couldn’t...” Emma protests weakly, but her heart’s not in it. She’s not really sure what to say. Or feel. Or think. Her own body feels strange to her now, the sound of her heartbeat in her ears alien to her. 

“Here,” David presses the glass into her hand. It’s oddly warm, and not just from the candles. It seems warm from the inside out, in a way human glass is decidedly not. “It’s yours.”

“But that means I’m...” Emma swallows and looks down at the little glass snowdrop. Every petal is perfect, soft and smooth and veined, and the leaves coming off the stalk are thinner than a sheet of paper. It is obviously not something made in the human world. “I’m half... From there.”

David just inclines his head in acceptance. Emma shakes hers in shock. 

Of all the ways she expected this conversation to go...

“There’s one more thing.” David says. 

“What?” Emma jokes half-heartedly. “Am I part fairy as well? You have a long lost brother from Neverland?”

David smiles but ignores the jab. He rises, rifling through a box of papers on the wooden table at the end of his bed, until he finds what he’s looking for. Emma frowns, craning to see what it is – and then he holds out his hand to show her what looks like a small, shining bean.

“What’s that?” Emma asks, more confused than ever.

“Another gift from your mother. I’d been saving it... But now I think about it, I’m pretty sure it was always meant for you.” He smiles and offers it to her. “As far as I remember, you throw it on the ground in front of you and think of where you want to go and well, three steps later, you’re there.”

Emma gingerly picks up the bean between her thumb and forefinger. Carefully, she slips it into her shirt pocket. “I think I’ll try walking first...” She pauses, looking down into her lap. Her teacup is nearly empty. The candle has burned down to a stub. 

Outside, the moon still shines high and bright. It’s warm inside, and she can feel her love for her father like an ache in her, but she thinks of Elsa Aren’s ice blue eyes and knows it is time to go. 

“If you see her, hear of her... Your mother... Please.” David says. And Emma knows. 

She just nods. 

David helps her pack her cloth bag with apples and cheese and bread, a handful of coins and thin wool blanket, and he walks with her to the end of the road, arm in arm like when she was little and they’d pretend to be royalty or knights on a quest, laughing and giving her pieces of advice, hiding the worry in his eyes. He turns back before they reach the wall, and Emma is glad. It would be harder to leave with him watching her. 

Her heart is racing by the time she sees the grey stone of the wall across the wet grass. She squints through the darkness, trying to see who’s on guard duty tonight. She can’t help but smirk to herself when she glimpses grey hair and eyes that are firmly shut. Emma crouches across the field a second, hiding in the darkness with the wind in her long loose hair, watching the rise and fall of old Timothy’s chest, just to make sure he’s asleep. 

_Well_ , she thinks, climbing to her feet and striding softly across the grass to the wall, _that was easier than I thought_. And with the bean, well. If everything went well she might be home by tomorrow night, tucked into bed and planning a nice summer wedding. 

Emma takes a deep breath, feeling the cool night breeze sting her cheeks and ruffle her blonde hair. She hefts her bag onto one shoulder and takes a step through the gap in the wall. 

As she walks through the long soft grass, it seems to Emma that the moon here is fuller and brighter than it had been a few moments ago, and the warm wind that strokes her face smells of summer, not spring, and the enormity of what she had done descends on her. She is walking into the Enchanted Forest, in search of a fallen star. 

Besides the bean, Emma has no idea how to find the star and find her way back home, nor how to keep herself safe and whole while she looked. She’s heard stories all her life of the monsters and myths hiding in the trees and plains of the land beyond the wall. It never occurred to her before that they might all be true. 

Emma shivers and gently touches the glass snowdrop she’s pinned to her jacket, nerves and excitement twisting in her gut. She looks back over her shoulder and imagines she can still see the warm lights of Storybrooke leaking through the gap in the wall, wavering and glimmering as if through a heat wave, or a pane of thick glass, but still inviting. 

That way is home. That way is safety. She knows that if she turns around right now and goes back, nobody will think any less of her. (In fact, they’d probably think she was more normal.) Her father would crush her in his strong arms, and Ingrid would give her a new job to do at the shop, and even Elsa would probably just smile and call her _shop girl_ and make some cutting comment about how stars, once fallen, are just as difficult to find. 

Emma thinks about Elsa’s white-gold hair and bright blue eyes, and the sound of her laugh. She hefts her bag more comfortably on her shoulder, adjusts the glass snowdrop in her coat. 

And so, too ignorant to be scared, too stubborn to be amazed, Emma Swan sets off beyond the fields she knows, and into the Enchanted Forest. 

 

-

 

But Emma has grown up in a village with one road in and one road out, and a population that can fit into the church hall. She cannot comprehend how vast and vastly dangerous the Enchanted Forest is, nor how many miles it spans. 

She has no idea that way over the snow-capped mountains and the siren’s lakes, the other side of the Enchanted Forest, another young woman is waking up. 

In the very centre of a dark crater – still smoking and crumbling with rocks and bits of blasted grass – this young woman rubs her eyes and shakes her head with confusion. She blinks her dark eyes open slowly. She’s been here for hours but she’s been out cold, and no wonder. 

There are bits of rock and leaf in her thick dark hair, a bloody scratch mars the olive skin of her wrist, and her back aches abominably. Oddly, it’s only when she pulls herself up onto her battered elbows that she realises the agonising pain stabbing through her leg and cries out, clutching her calf. 

The woman’s dark brows draw together into a frown. She looks down at herself. The dried blood along her arm, the dirt in her hair and under her hands. The unnatural twist of her leg. The solid, hard packed earth beneath her, the crater sloping all around her. 

Her breath catches in her throat when she stares up at the wide dark sky, impossibly high above her head, out of reach. All the other stars are shining down on her. And suddenly she remembers something whacking her in the ribs, and she remembers falling, falling and falling and falling until... 

Regina looks at ground beneath her, and her broken leg, and the once more, hopelessly, back up to the distant sky. 

“Fuck.” She swears, quite eloquently. “ _Fuck_.”


End file.
